Category Archives: Defining Moment

The intelligent, romantic, weird and astonishingly emotional film from Michel Gondry and Charlie Kaufman, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind was released 10 years ago this week. We shall celebrate with many inspired posters for the film below, but first, a brief love letter to the film:

The experience of following Lacuna Inc. a loose small-business that specializes in erasing memories, and two patients, former lovers, who submit themselves to treatment spans is delightfully unclassifiable by any sort of movie genre yardstick. A fascinating take on the first blush of falling in love (twice) is surely one of the best films of the Aughts. It is a bitter romance nevertheless full of hopeful possibility. It is a piece of science fiction par excellence. You can be swept up in the pure entertainment of the movie, or you can dive down the moral rabbit hole. How much right to do have to exert over your own body? Is it illegal to chop off your own arm? Commit Suicide? Erase significant portions of your memory? Should an easy way of absolving oneself of guilt and conscience exist as a business venture (some would argue that most commercial ventures do this to one extent or another!)? Emotion to trump morality, perhaps the ultimate statement on both the cinema, and the human condition. Well done sirs.

With Hollywood’s once fresh, young faces aging with wisdom, experience and (for the most part) honorable careers, it’s safe to say there are limits to the roles Leo Dicaprio, Matt Damon, Ethan Hawke, Ben Affleck, Tobey Maguire and their seasoned comrades of this attractive graduating class will be able to snag. This inevitable ‘passing of the torch’ has been in effect since the start. Would you like to know more…?

Browsing through the massive amount of daily mondo cinema linkage over at the always fabulous GreenCine Daily, one thing that popped out was that The New Yorker recently put up Pauline Kael‘s original review of Blood Simple written at the time of the Coens‘ film debut, February 1985. It’s a fascinating read, one because the length of the review is about 3-4 times longer than most press and/or magazine film reviews these days (Kael can and does get into some of the minutiae of the films matter) and and two because she seems to totally nail the foundation of the Coens‘ idiom, yet fails to actually get (or what she does get, rubs her the wrong way) what makes them so damn enjoyable as filmmakers. I offer you some excerpts below, but encourage any film fan to read the full review (HERE – be sure to scroll down, unless you are interested on what she has to say about Peter Weir‘s Witness).

“But [they don’t] seem to know what to do with the actors; they give their words too much deliberation and weight, and they always look primed for the camera. So they come across as amateurs.”

“[Blood Simple] works best when someone misinterprets who the enemy is but has the right response anyway. (It’s like a bedroom farce, except that the people sneaking into each other’s homes have vicious rather than amorous intentions.)”

“Coen’s style is deadpan and klutzy, and he uses the klutziness as his trump card. It’s how he gets his laughs.”

“Blood Simple is that kind of student film on a larger scale. It isn’t really about anything except making a commercial narrative movie outside the industry.”

“The reviewers who hail the film as a great début and rank the Coens with Welles, Spielberg, Hitchcock, and Sergio Leone may be transported by seeing so many tricks and flourishes from sources they’re familiar with. But the reason the camera whoop-de-do is so noticeable is that there’s nothing else going on.”

Now the Coens‘ filmography does indeed read like a tacky tourist trip through many of the classic genres of cinema (Screwball Comedy, Noir, Gangster, Slacker Comedy), and they’ve certainly managed at least one great American classic (That’d be Fargo, although many would also argue No Country For Old Men, or perhaps Barton Fink). Ms. Kael’s initial write-off seems a bit harsh, perhaps a backlash to the brothers coming so quick out of the gate into high falutin’ cinema circles. Over their 23 year career (Oi, Ethan was only 26 when this film was made) They have married successfully comedy to pathos, style to substance and most importantly, art-film to pop-entertainment. No small feat that.

I‘ve decided to contribute a new reoccurring post here on Row Three called Defining Moment. My plan is to give a short mention of moments in film that have had an impact on film as a whole.

The first of that I’d like to mention is Al Jolson‘s first words in The Jazz Singer. The Jazz singer was released in 1927 and it was the first non silent feature movie. Prior to this movie if a movie had sound it came from a gramophone records. Even when it was released with sound there were only a few theatres that were equipped to handle the sound but it became obvious pretty quickly that this was not a fad and soon more and more theatres were equipped.

Al Jolson’s first words which were ad libbed were “Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain’t heard nothin’ yet! Wait a minute, I tell ya! You ain’t heard nothin’! You wanna hear “Toot, Toot, Tootsie”? All right, hold on, hold on…Lou, listen. Play “Toot, Toot, Tootsie”, three chorus, you understand. In the third chorus, I whistle. Now give it to ‘em hard and heavy, go right ahead.”

Its with these words that Jolson and The Jazz Singer ushered in a new era of movies.

Matthew Price: I can’t figure out thing one about that franchise – 300 is about 20% shy of what DM2 did last year, but you could absolutely be right. That said, HTTYD2 was a bit of a downer which I think explains in part what didn’t click for audiences (and...

Matthew Price: I talked about it on the show – I don’t think it has no chance, just that it is more likely to finish in the hundred and change region, just outside the top ten. That said it’s entirely possible that it will resonate and go beyond that.

Andrew James: Not the quirky piece of lighthearted, artful fun I thought this was going to be. Rather, this is the story of neglected mental illness and a sad girl stuck inside a depressing version of a Wes Anderson film.

graham chalk: ok, this may not be the bestest movie in the history of the motion picture, but having finally watched it (put off by the reviews after purchasing a copy from the £shop)..I thought it was pretty good. I’m a student of WW2 and of the Russian experience. I...

Sean Kelly: I believe THE LITTLE MERMAID was part of the Disney series at Lightbox (I think it was a weekend screening. I saw TRON and FLIGHT OF THE NAVIGATOR, both of which were prints (was was actually shown in 70mm, which made the film look great). I’m disappointed...

Rick: Personally I found that for the concept the film(which is quite good), it was not able to hold up to its opening scene which is a perfect little piece. The ending hit the meh note for me especially compared to how hard the beginning hit.

Kurt: It’s a cult film in JAPAN, I thought I framed it that way in the show…

Kurt: He has about 5 minutes of screen-time with little dialogue – about the equivalent time and tone of Ciarán Hinds’ screen-time in THERE WILL BE BLOOD.

ultimolee: I’d forgotten god was in The Salvation…. Mads meets God, need to watch this ASAP

Andrew James: Skyfall was one of the best movies of 2012. Sam Mendes is going to try and top it. Can he? Kurt, got a tiny bit of Eyes Wide Shut vibe in the final scene in the trailer. This is going to be good!

David Brook: I was a little disappointed in SPL, but this looks awesome and with Yen you’re usually in safe hands action-wise at least. It’s got a nice old-school feel to it too, which appeals to my tastes.

devolutionary: Always be mindful of clickbait conventions. The Title seldom ever accurately describes the content. It’s all about what will draw the most viewers.

Andrew James: I seem to remember reading an article fairly recently that stated that Americans now prefer craft beers and micro-brews over the big corp. lagers (e.g. Bud, Coors, Miller, etc.). Meaning that if you put the dollars spent on all of the other craft beers combined,...

Jonathan: I definitely interpreted “popular” to mean “best-selling.” In terms of flavor, I’d imagine something like Sam Adams Boston Lager would have a widespread appeal if they ranked “favorite” in America, but maybe I’m giving...

Markus Krenn: The beer chart is faulty. The beer displayed as the german favorite is just the lowest priced one, so everyone (people who live on the streets or people with no income) who can’t afford a ‘real’ beer will buy it. Therefor i asume the chart is...

David Brook: Yeah, I think it’s definitely a marmite film. I’m surprised it seems to be getting fairly unanimous praise as it’s a film you can easily pick apart and, like Jim’s experience, the general public at the screening I went to didn’t seem...

David Brook: This looks like a decent take on the zombie genre, which I’m usually very bored with. However, as much as I love Arnie, I’m not sure he can carry a serious role like this. We’ll just have to wait and see.

Jonathan: It looks like a fresh enough take on the zombie flick–and I like Arnie and Abigail. I’m in.

Sean Kelly: Yeah, that Cameron Bailey quote does seem like rubbing salt in the wound.